Life from a Wellcome Trust perspective

Public Engagement Round-up: November

November is jam-packed with screenings, exhibitions and events funded by Wellcome Trust Engaging Science awards. What will inspire you this month?

Neurocomic Live at the Dundee Literature festival – 2nd November
Neurocomic, a graphic novel taking the reader on a journey through the human brain will be showcased at the Dundee Literature festival, with a simultaneous neuroscience lecture and live illustration by its creators Dr. Hana Roš and Dr. Matteo Farinella.

Autism: Challenging Behaviour – BBC4, 9pm 5th November Jack (3) and Jeremiah (4), are starting their first term at Treetops School in Essex, the only state school in the UK which uses Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) a controversial and intensive intervention used to treat autism. The documentary explores the controversy around ABA. Their parents have high hopes of this ‘tough love’ approach, but critics argue that it is dehumanizing and abusive to try to eliminate autistic behaviour.

3D Print Show at the London Design Centre – 7-9th November Head to the 3D print show to see the Wellcome-supported 3D printed hospital, and events within it. Explore 3D printing in the realm of medicine and look at a host of applications from printing ears to stem cells.

“Matters of Life and Death”, a series of events at Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol
This programme of events follows the story of medicine from ancient disease to modern medical campaigns, revealing gruesome and gripping facts along the way. Events include:Battlefield: the History of Polio – 7.30pm 30th October. During the 1950s, polio terrified Americans almost as much as the atom bomb. Now, vaccination has pushed it to the brink of extinction – but can we win that final battle?Debate over Dissection: Anatomists, Artists, Resurrectionists and Gothic Writers – 7.30pm 6th November Explore the nineteenth-century debates surrounding dissection and the vigorous trade in grave robbing.Water, Waste, Disease & Poetry: 150 years of Fecopoetics – 7.30pm 13th November The great sewerage reforms of the Victorian period provided unlikely inspiration to the poetry of the time. Discover what the ‘Fecopoets’ had to say.“But alive again unto God”: Leprosy in Antiquity – 7.30pm 20th November Tracing the origins of Leprosy in antiquity, its global spread and hold on the popular imagination in the medieval period, and its modern decline.Who is Afraid of Cemeteries? Memory, Oblivion, and Urban Spaces of Death – 7.30pm 27th November Discover how the unfamiliarity and strangeness of death to modern man and woman, frame the tension between memory and oblivion played out in cemeteries such as Arnos Vale.
For full details of the events see the Arnos Vale Cemetery website.

Neurocomic

‘Brains: The Mind as Matter’ at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester – until January
Wellcome Collection’s Brains exhibition will be in Manchester until 4th January 2014, with some previously unseen objects and artworks exploring Manchester’s contribution to understanding the brain. Engaging Science Awards have funded some events to run alongside the exhibition:Dark Matters, 1st November, 7pm A special late-night event exploring the dark side of our brains. Discover some fascinating and frightening facts behind this elusive organ with installations, talks, games and performances –. http://www.mosi.org.uk/whats-on/brains-the-mind-as-matter/brains-events.aspxBrain Trauma Live! 1st November, 8pm and 9.30pmEngagement Fellow Roger Kneebone invites you into the operating theatre to see what really goes on during brain surgery in this interactive event on.Brain Surgery: Don’t Lose Your Head, 2nd Novemberfrom 1pm Serious head injuries need urgent action – find out how a brain surgeon deals with an emergency case by following our simulation from the scene of the injury to the operating theatre. Performances are onhttp://www.mosi.org.uk/whats-on/manchester-science-festival/family-fun/brain-surgery-dont-lose-your-head.aspx.

Fragmentary Ancestors: Figurines from Koma Land, Ghana at the Manchester Museum – until May T
his exhibition is the first ever officially approved showing of clay figurines made by the previously little understood people in Koma Land in Ghana in West Africa. A series special events funded through Wellcome Trust People Awards are running at the Manchester Museum alongside this exhibition:Collection Bites: Trading Well-being: The Materiality of Medicine and Religion at a Healers’ Market, Accra, Ghana. 6th November, 1pm. In West Africa healing combines both medicine and religion with specialist markets selling herbs and idols side by side. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Ghana, PhD Archaeology student, Bryn Trevelyan James will open a conversation on the stories behind some fascinating objects.Big Saturday: Ancient Faces & Places, 16th November, 11am-4pm Discover, explore and get hands-on with a fun family day out at the Museum. Find out more about the people of ancient times through objects; how they used and made them.

Perception, a new exhibition at Cambridge Science Centre – November-March Perception will use illusions to uncover how our senses and brain work, and the tricks your brain uses to make sense of the world. This series of adult events from November–March have been funded by Wellcome Trust People Awards.Get a whiff of this – 13th November 7pm Are you a super taster? What is it like to experience food without a sense of smell? Come and have your senses served up on a plate.Can you believe your eyes? 28th November 7pm Our sense of vision is important to our lives, but what if it is damaged or changed? Can brain injuries help us understand more about how our visual system works? Come for a night of altered perceptions and visual illusions to find out about our amazing sense of vision.Do you like what you see? 16th January 7pmNew year – new body shape? Explore the science of human body perception and how the media affects how we feel about our bodies and what we can do to keep a healthy body image.Now hear this! 20th February 7pm Can your ears can be fooled? What happens when your hearing gets damaged? Get within ear shot of some amazing hearing illusions and researchers. Touchy Feely – 20th March 7pmWhat would your life be like without a sense of touch or pain? Get hands-on and discover the science behind how we feel and touch our way through the world.

Clod Ensemble and The Wales Millennium Centre present The Anatomy Season – 26th November-7th December
Supported by an Arts Award, the Anatomy Season is an interactive investigation into the inner workings of the body, featuring artists, performers, anatomists and medics. Workshops include Anatomical Drawing and Wax Sculpting Anatomy, and discussions include Artists Talk Anatomy. An Anatomie in Four Quarters, 29th and 30th November is a dance performance supported by a People Award. It celebrates the physical structure of the bodies we inhabit and the ways we attempt to see, define, contain, name and value them. The anatomy of the theatre itself is dissected as the audience walks to different viewing positions throughout the piece, examining what it means to open up and be opened.

Still on….Centrally Heated Knickers, a vibrant theatre show for children and families is still on tour.Mess, a theatre production about anorexia, continues its tour.The Noise, an edge of the seat, sci-conspiracy thriller, is at West Yorkshire Playhouse 5-6th November and at Warwick Arts Centre 21st November.Echo, a new large-scale immersive video installation, is still on at FACT in Liverpool until 21st November.The exhibition of Madge Gill’s ‘outsider art’ will be at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham until 26th January.Jordan Baseman’s A Cold Hand on a Cold Dayexhibition is at Fabrica in Brighton until 24th November.Alasdair Hopwood’s False Memory Archive will be at the Exchange Gallery, Penzance until 4th January.

E-mail Subscription

Follow us on Twitter

Google+

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health by supporting bright minds in science, the humanities and social sciences, and public engagement. Read more.

Commenting guidelines

By commenting on this blog you agree to abide by our Community Guidelines. Although we will do our utmost to avoid it, we reserve the right to edit, move or delete any comments which do not follow the guidelines provided.